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"An Hour With ViBtorg/' 



{( 



AN HOUR WITH VICTORY," 



;A PAPER 



READ BEFORE THE OHIO COMMANDERY 



MILITARY ORDER 



DECEMBER 2, 1BB5, 
BY COMPANION 

Late js/ Lieutenant i?>th U. S. Lnfantry. 



CINCINNATI: 

H. C. SHERICK & CO. 

188 5. 



■■n EXCHAHSE 

JAN 5 - 19^^ 









5< 



An Hour With Victory. 



Commander and Companions : 

No story of the Army of tlie Cumberland can be so 
fitly introduced to an audience of soldiers, as by the linking 
with its chain the name of the great commander, whose 
imperishable renown is the rich inheritance of all, and 
whose veneration lies next the heart of the corps and army 
that followed his standard through the years of the nation's 
trial and leaning on his strong arm, with the firm trust of 
children, never knew defeat. 

In the hour of peril, at Stone River, when the right 
had met disaster and the flushed lines of gray swept down 
to engulf the center, we saw order born from chaos and the 
full tide of victory stayed, because "the hand of the Master 
compelled it to pause." We saw him, in the cold chill of 
that terrible September day, at Chickamauga, when the 
lines had been broken and two thirds of the army was 
drifting back to Chattanooga, gather around him the frag- 
ments of the wreck, and firm as the hills against which he 
eaned, roll back the billows of war that beat against him 
until the sun went down. We saw him at Chattanooga, 
launching against the heights of Mission Ridge, the thun- 
derbolt that burned through the lines of gray veter- 
ans, and sent them reeling in defeat across the river of 
death. We saw him at Nashville, calm, silent, immovable, 
resisting the impatience of high places until the hour had 
come, and then sweeping the enemy's lines with the besom 
of destruction. 

At last, when the great work was ended, and the 

(3) 



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country he had done so much to save, stood foremost of the 
nations ; we saw him die. I wish I might say, honored to 
the limit of his great deserving, but if the iron of ingratitude 
ever entered the soul of George H. Thomas, the true heart 
made no sign. He died, and the cheeks of grizzled veter- 
ans "unused to the melting mood," were seamed with 
tears, as the loved commander passed onward to the Grand 
Army beyond the stars. Great soldier ; tried patriot ; hail 
and farewell. 

"This earth that bears thee, dead, 

Bears not alive so stout a gentleman." 

Borne down at Chickamauga, saved from utter extinc- 
tion by the superb fight for life made by Thomas, the Army 
of the Cumberland fell back to Chattanooga and turned 
at bay on the foe that frowned down upon it from the en- 
circling heights of Mission Ridge and Lookout. Its line 
of supply severed, a navigable river at its back, a powerful 
and exultant enemy on its front and flanks ; it seemed to 
the most hopeful that the hours of the Army of the Cum- 
berland were numbered. Sixty-three days the devoted 
command faced the enemy and shovelled and starved ; while 
from the guns of Lookout came daily warning that the foe 
was impatient to be in at the death. All this time the earn- 
est, anxious North is alive to its army's peril, and day and 
night the throbbing steam monsters, with their loads of hu- 
man freight, are sweeping the miles behind them in a race 
against starvation, with the life of a gallant arm}^ for the 
stakes. 

From the veterans of the East and the West comes 
needed and trusty aid, and at last, in the mountains of 
Tennessee, the united forces stand shoulder to shoulder. 

Hooker, with three divisions of as many armies, has 
fought his dramatic battle above the clouds, swept Lookout 
clean of the rebel host, descended to the valley of Chatta- 
nooga, and now directs his force up the valley to fall on 
the rebel fl.ank at Rossville. Yonder ! on the left, where 
the ridge dips to the wateis of the Tennessee, Sherman has 



crossed to the south bank, effected a lodgment on the ridge 
and is pounding with blow on blow of the great northern 
hammer at the rebel right. Here, in the center, in front 
of Chattanooga, Thomas holds the Army of the Cumber- 
land inactive ; all its thunders pent up, waiting the develop- 
ment of the turning movements, then to hurl it against the 
rebel center. This then, briefly sketched, is the position 
of the armies on the afternoon of November 25, 1863. 
Hooker, on the right, making a turning movement ; Sher- 
man, on the left, with a lodgment on the hill, and heavily 
engaged ; Thomas in the center and waiting. Beyond the 
valley, a mile away, crowning the heights with infantry 
and artillery, lies the rebel army, waiting, too, except where 
Sherman knocks so persistently. 

Half past three o'clock of that short November day; 
what work there is to do must be done quickly, if the night 
looks down on victory. From the group of officers on 
Orchard Knob, shoot out like arrows from a bow, four 
aides bearing orders, big with the fate of the Army of the 
Cumberland and the cause ; down the lines of the four wait- 
ing divisions without a pause, and as each commander is 
found, other horsemen take up the cry and the minutes are 
few until every man in the expectant army knows the work 
before him. At the signal of six guns from Orchard Knob, 
Baird, Wood, Sheridan, Johnson, with their divisions, 
veterans of Stone River and Chickamauga, will advance, 
carr}'^ the rifle pits at the foot of the hill, reform and storm 
the heights. Never in the history of the war were soldiers 
charged with the execution of an order more momentous ; 
never with a task more herculean. A mile of valley to be 
traversed under the fire of half a hundred guns, and be- 
yond that, rising six hundred feet against the sky line,* the 
ridge bristling from base to crown with veteran infantr}^ 
that has crossed bayonets with its assailants on more than 
one blood}'^ field ; a searching sweep of the glass reveals, of 
these gray veterkns, a continuous line at the base, a partial 
line midway, and a continuous line at the summit. It is a 



— 6 — 

walk and climb to fatigue a robust man, making the jour- 
ney at his leisure and unopposed. Now, every foot of the 
way beset with peril, "stormed at with shot and shell ;" it 
is the valley of the dark shadow leading 

" Into the jaws of death — 
Into the mouth of hell." 

You have all felt the terrible calm before the battle, the 
anxious moments before the order to advance, and while 
the assaulting column waits it thinks, and thoughts fly fast 
at such times. This soldier, with nervous eagerness, reads 
a letter too sacred for other eyes, and the fragments are 
given to the winds, while 

"Something upon the soldiers' cheek 
Washes the stain of powder," 

That one has a picture, "eyes look your last, lips take 
your last embrace," and close over the soldier's heart, 
it rests like an amulet; hear that boyish recruit "jest at 
scars,'' it is his first battle. Yonder sits one, rapt, silent; 
this Southern battle picture, with its marshalled armies, has 
faded away, and there, across the fields, by the roadside, 
stands the old farmhouse ; to-morrow is Thanksgiving da}^ 
and, in this far-away Northern home, the family will gather 
at the fireside, trace through the columns of the weekly 
paper, the movements of the Army of the Cumberland ; 
watch with anxious hearts for the mention of one brigade, 
one regiment, and wonder, with choking voices, how it 
fares with their brave soldier, whose chair stands vacant 
at the hearth — ay, how will it fare to-morrow, and that 
hill to climb to-night? — The girls serve the dinner; one of 
mother's best dinners ; there at table sits whitehaired father, 
with his hands clasped across his plate, to ask the blessing 
that in days gone by has fallen so often on unheeding ears, 
and by his side the tears welling from her eyes at thoughts 
of her brave soldier boy — she knows him braves ; its dear 
devoted old mother, tender and true. God bless every hair 
of her old gray head ! And sisters — he is penitent this 
afternoon — should the last sleep come to-night ; from the 



top of that death-crowned ridge, may all the boyish wrongs 
be forgiven. Mother, father, sisters, may God bless — 
Fall in ! lively, now, men ! hear the guns ! Right dress ! 
Front ! Right shoulder shift, arms ! Forward, guide 
center, double quick, march ! and the divisionsare away, 
the thunderbolt is hurled. 

Now, good christian people, in your Northern homes, 
down on your knees before the Lord of Hosts, and until 
the going down of the sun, pray without ceasing for your 
gallant soldiers, breasting the storm of death ; never had 
mortal men more need ; through the skirting timber into 
the open valley, brushing away the lines of rebel skir- 
mishers like flies, spring two double lines of blue, straight 
as an arrow, a mile between the flanks, as the crow flies, 
guns burnished and colors flying ; an army with banners, 
gorgeous as a tournament, grand as a crusade ; its destina- 
tion the heights yonder, filled with foes and lined with hos- 
tile guns. Is it to be only a parade after all? The guns 
are silent, and the rifle pits are alive with mute but inter- 
ested spectators ; away on the left is the ring of angry guns, 
and desolation, and dead, and dying ; here, no sound but 
the swish of the autumn grass under the tread of armed 
men. A quarter of a mile gone over. Why, this is only 
corps drill, men, are petition of the months at Murfrees- 
boro, and there, on the ridge, as I live, is a white flag ! 
No, by heavens, it's a gun ! Another, and another, there's 
a man down ! See that great gap in the lines ! Brace up, 
men, dress on the colors and forward for God and country. 
Now, from the hill top, half a hundred guns warm to their 
work, shot and shell go crashing through the advancing 
lines, leaving dead and dying in their track , in full view of 
the charging column, the gray veterans ply sponge, and 
rammer, and lanyard ; how devilishly expert they are ! 
Now dropping shots come from the rifle pits, and here, 
there, yonder, men handle their muskets convulsively and 
drop from the line. Soon, from crown and slope and base, 
the roll of musketry swells the dreadful diapason of the 



cannonade, the hill is on fire, a volcano in eruption, the 
track of the gallant army is flecked with dead and djdng, 
and all the time the lines closing on their colors, guns at 
the right shoulder, grim, silent, terrible, swoop down on 
that doomed first line of gray, like a decree of fate. Not a 
cheer, not a shot ; here, there, a quick spoken word of 
command, and always forward. 

Never faltering, bending to the storm, quickening the 
pace as it goes, the mass of living valor — decimated now — 
rolls on ; up to the line of levelled muskets, a death in 
every flash, crowning the parapet over it into the trench, a 
breathless moment of death and terror, and the gray defend- 
ers ; prisoners to the last man, stream to the rear, pursued 
by the storm beating down from their friends on the hill- 
top. Now, for the first time, since those six signal guns a 
mile away, the chase finds voice, and with a "view hallo," 
a glad yankee hurrah, the blue lines, merged in one, like an 
unleashed pack, spring at the slope. No formation now ; 
follow your colors, and each regiment in shape like a 
wedge — wedges that are riving the confederate center — 
with the old flag streaming at its point, coils sinuously up 
the slope, like the link of a mile long serpent, shot answer- 
ing shot, an honest cheer for every rebel yell, fighting for 
life, toiling over rocks, and ravines, and fallen timber as 
never men toiled before, the line winds upward, hanging be- 
tween heaven and earth, like the hope of the faithful. No 
fear now, no laggard, no care, but to be first at the summit, 
every man a hero, and every hero a host. Back yonder, 
in the defenses, sits carking care; "will they make it," is 
whispered with white lips? Is it possible for mortal men to 
scale that ridge under such a fire of hell? "It can't be 
done, boys," says a grizzled veteran, leaning critically on 
his musket, and earnestly scanning the hill; "it can"t be 
done. I've seen that game tried on too often." 

Will they make it! Will the sun rise to-morrow? 
Those men are lifted above mortality, and that blue line 
seaming the hill-side yonder and reaching upward, is the 



— 9 — 

scourge of God. And all the time the gallant line goes 
grandly upward, without a halt the second line of gray is 
driven back to the crest ; above the heroic band rolls the 
live thunder, blasting where it strikes ; below, the brown 
of the autumn landscape, dotted thick with deeper shades. 
Still on to the hill-top ! plunged in the lurid smoke, here 
seen through a rift, thei^e obscured, those heroes, cast in 
titanic mold and bearing the fate of empire, dying struggle 
and struggling die ; there comes a moment when the smoke 
rolls down, and with a great throb of sound, the mountain 
stands pulseless. All of agony, or hope, or fear is in the 
instant. How terrible the silence I Is that the old flag 
crowning the hill-top and blazing through the smoke .'^ 
Look again, my eyes are dim ; by all the hopes of man, it 
is ! Another and another — twenty of them ! Now, Glory 
to the Lord of Hosts from whom all glories are, and glory 
to our thunderbolt of the Cumberland, that in one perilous, 
tremendous hour has burned through the fires of hell to the 
heighth of immortality. Down the slope rolls a great shout 
of victory ; ringing across the valley and rousing the 
wounded as it goes; on to the defenses of Chattanooga, 
telling in gladness the story that the leaguer is raised and 
the red field is won. 

Fifty guns, mute witnesses of valor, six thousand pris- 
oners streaming down the slope, the wreck of a beaten 
army drifting away through the valley of the Chickamauga, 
and on the hill-top, by the side of the smoking, silent guns, 
weary and faint from the long march through the valley of 
the dark shadow, stand the Immortals ; their tattered flags 
gilded with the mingled glories of sunset and victory and 
their brows crowned with laurels as unfading as time. 

When the Angel of Peace spread her white wings over 
the field of Appomattox and unrolled the scroll blazoned 
with the record of valorous deeds done in the cause of lib- 
erty, lo ! the story of the great charge, written in letters of 
light, stood foremost among the greatest. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 702 495 ^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 702 495 ^ 



